Surfaces are treated in an confident way giving the impression of a monolith, small windows give a guess of cool, spacious rooms. 

A tower of glass blocks is cut into the volume — compact glass cubes stretch upwards under the roof like Tetris.

This machine for living and parties is crowned by a solarium — and the house has the character of a representative residence, it is not for nothing that it was for some time the Consulate house of Marocco.

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This is a gem of modern architecture in Cyprus, one of the first buildings by Benjamin Ginzburg (aka Ben Zion Ginzburg), a Zurich-trained architect from Tel Aviv. Very soon he became the leading master of the 1930s and 1940s on the island, erecting Limassol's landmark buildings, notably the Rialto Cinema and the Town Hall.

What do we know about this beautiful house? 

It was built by the architect Benjamin Ginzburg, who studied in Zurich and worked between Tel Aviv and Cyprus in the 1930s-1950s.

Researchers consider him the father of Art Deco on the island, we talk about him in the “1 km of architecture route of Limassol”. 

But if you compare it with the City Hall in Limassol, which is frozen in indecision between neoclassicism and modernity, or with the Ledra Hotel in Nicosia with Venetian quotes, modernism rules here and, probably, the customer type is different. 

According to the historian Joseph Hadjikyriakos, the ordering customer was Michalakis Chacholiades, the businessman who advantageously married Augusta Pierides of the famous family of Larnaca business leaders, which we talk about in the “Larnaca Beach Classics”. 

The Pierides owned this land, the family also erected a small herm of Zeno of Citium in honor of one of their grandfathers, Zeno Pierides.

By the way, several more buildings have been preserved in the center of Larnaca, which, based on their stylistic elements, can be attributed as the works of Ginzburg. 

Let it be hoped that they will be preserved, and that one day you and I will be able to take a tour of this and other glorious buildings.